favour with the Great, and does not see that we only use him as we would a
puppet-show or a dancing-dog."

"What folly," said Godolphin, "it is in any man of genius (not also of
birth) to think the Great of this country can possibly esteem him!
Nothing can equal the secret enmity with which dull men regard an
intellect above their comprehension. Party politics, and the tact, the
shifting, the commonplace that Party politics alone require; these they
can appreciate; and they feel respect for an orator, even though he be not
a county member; for he can assist them in their paltry ambition for place
and pension: but an author, or a man of science, the rogues positively
jeer at him!"

"And yet," said Saville, "how few men of letters perceive a truth so
evident to us, so hackneyed even in the conversations of society! For a
little reputation at a dinner table, for a coaxing nobe from some titled
demirep affecting the De Stael, they forget not only to be glorious but
even to be respectable. And this, too, not only for so petty a
gratification, but for one that rarely lasts above a London season. We
allow the low-born author to be the lion this year; but we dub him a bore
the next. We shut our doors upon his twice-told jests, and send for the
Prague minstrels to sing to us after dinner instead."

"However," said Godolphin, "it is only poets you find so foolish as to be
deceived by you. There is not a single prose writer of real genius so
absurd."

"And why is that?"

"Because," replied Godolphin, philosophising, "poets address themselves